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Welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy startups and venture capital news. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last-place week, I wrote about U.S. VC activity in Europe. Before that, I noted Chinese investor the actions of Africa.
Remember, you can send me tip-off, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark @techcrunch. com or on Twitter @KateClarkTweets. If you’re brand-new, you can subscribe to Startups Weekly here.
Hello from Berlin, where we’ve just wrap our annual meeting, TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin. Top investors shared insight into European venture capital, well-known individuals and firms made announcements( large and small ), and entrepreneurs pontificated about the future of startups in their respective regions.
As I spoke with various early-stage startup founders presenting at the occurrence, chatted with U.S. and European venture capitalists and brain-stormed with all my fellow members, I reflected on my last 12 months inside the tech bubble. Soon, I’ll be writing an extended look at what I see as the 10 biggest themes in startups and VC in 2019. But for now, here’s a sneak peek at my top picks.
SoftBank screw ups.From WeWork to Wag to Fair.com, SoftBank built headlines over and over again this year–for all the incorrect reasons. WeWork woes. SoftBank’s ace portfolio corporation struggled the most. This was the biggest story of its first year and its complete with stimulants, private jets, burned cash and upset employees. CEO exodus. From Away co-founder Steph Korey to WeWork’s Adam Neumann, a whole lot of executives exited their posts this year. Unicorn IPO struggles . Uber, Lyft, Pinterest, Zoom and more unicorns went public this year. Some fared better than others. The fight for seed. There was more competition than ever at the earliest stage of venture capital. As a result, investors get creative, hired fresh faces, created new monies and even passed founders lavish endows. Y Combinator growth. Everyone’s favorite accelerator got a whole lot bigger this year. Not merely did its cohorts swell, but its president, Sam Altman, stepped down and the firm cemented changes to its investment process. VCs+ direct rolls= <3. When venture capitalist weren’t busy gossiping about WeWork and SoftBank, they were debating a new and innovative path to the public markets: direct listings.
Every startup is a bank. Brex raised hundreds of millionsVC isn’t the only option. While VCs were going crazy for consumer financial services The diversity disaster persists. Women still only raise 2.8% of venture capital in the U.S.
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